Part 1:
One of my favorite podcasts to listen to is called Science Vs. The format of the podcast is that they take a serious and well researched look into scientific stories or topics that are trending in the news or on social media. It’s an entertaining yet informative podcast, and listening to it has inspired two topics for me to write about for this blog. This piece is the first of those two topics. Looking through the podcasts of Science Vs. provides an interesting window into what scientific topics were breaking out of scientific studies and journals, and into popular conversation. If you listen to that back catalog, to my eyes (or in this case ears), you will find a recognizable pattern in some of the episodes. It seems as if every six months to a year, a new diet or exercise trend will sweep through the news and social media, promising great things.
When a podcast like Science Vs. takes a close look at this new trend, there tends to be a familiar train of events I’ve heard so many times I can write a template for them (by chance if anyone who works on Science Vs. ever reads this feel free to use this template). Some scientific study is published that point to a potential benefit of some food, diet, or exercise routine, but the study is either small, flawed, or not definitive in its conclusion. Leveled-headed people in the scientific community think the study is worth following up on to test its results, but scientific rigor is boring and ill-suited to generating eye-catching, click-baiting, ad selling headlines. So, news agencies, social media influencers, celebrities, and more jump on the new trend bandwagon and tell everyone who will listen that this new thing will change their life. This new trend is a one stop shop to cure all your ills and ease all your ailments, it’s so easy and simple, and it only requires a small investment in whatever food, workout equipment, or bogus health bracelet is the new trend. What’s a little money compared to your well-being? Frankly, you’d be a fool not to take advantage of this new trend while you have the chance.
Only later does thorough scientific examination ruin everything. It’s easy to write a headline claiming miraculous things without any evidence to support those claims, especially if there is a financial incentive to be sensationalistic. Slowly, but inexorably, other studies and more experts weigh in the new trend, raining on everyone’s parade. As it turns out, the benefits of this new fad were widely overblown. Initially people either deliberately or inadvertently misrepresented or exaggerated evidence, and the more people talked about the new health trend, the wilder and more outlandish the claims became. As those wild claims get debunked, and the wondrous benefits promised turn out to be mundane or nonexistent, enthusiasm for the new fad slowly dies down.
But fear not! Almost as if on cue, as one trend fades away, another swoops in to take its place. The old trend is quickly forgotten by almost everyone, and the new, new trend promises to be even better than the last. It sounds so stupendous that it’s almost…unbelievable?
On and on this cycle goes, with each new idea gaining traction, being challenged, fading away, and being replaced with the next one. The obvious question to ask is why? Why has this cycle developed the way it has in the US? Like with everything else in life, there are a lot of factors interacting and pinging off one another. To start with, the US in the early 21st century is still a capitalist society addicted to materialism and wasteful consumption. The best and most succinct way I have ever heard American consumerism described was by a Christian monk on a TV show years ago when he said (I’m paraphrasing a little): “America isn’t about meeting needs, it’s about creating needs and selling the solution.” The American economy is predicated on people being dissatisfied with their lives, and the only solution provided for their dissatisfaction is endless spending. The revolving door of one diet or exercise craze after another is an extension of this system.
That explains the incentive for people who make money off of these trends, what about the people spending money? Part of the motivation for following every trend is that dissatisfaction I just mentioned, but I believe another is a basic fear of aging and death that people are afraid to confront or acknowledge. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying a healthy lifestyle is a bad thing, being as healthy as possible can extend the length and quality of your life markedly. I’m talking about people avoiding the unavoidable truth that try as they might, they will not escape the cold hand of the reaper forever.
There is another factor that drives people to follow every health fad they encounter: it sounds easy. The allure of finding a simple, low effort solution to improve one’s health is strong enough that people are willing to accept a lot of baseless claims. People are looking for a simple, one step solution to their health, but that is illusory. So, they go from trend to trend, each time thinking this is the solution they have been looking for. You know what probably is the closest thing to one answer for all your health concerns? Moderation and self discipline. However, that takes work, and a lot of people don’t want to commit to that. Instead, they keep getting suckered into one trend after another. I won’t lay the blame entirely on the people who follow these passing fads. Not only is American society consumerist to a fault, it’s also a society that increasingly overworks and underappreciates the people living in it. It’s understandable that people who are exhausted search for something simple that doesn’t require a lot of effort. The more I look closely at American society, and perhaps western civilization more broadly, the more systemic issues I find. None of those issues have simple solutions, they all require root and branch changes to our cultural values and assumptions.
So far, I’ve been discussing trends that promise positive results, but this cycle applies equally well to negative trends too. It’s obviously more difficult to make money by telling people to not do something, but how many times have we all seen examples of studies taken out of context or exaggerated leading to scaremongering headlines about the dangers of such and such. Then eventually, enough time passes for whatever people were frightened of to not seem so scary anymore.
Part 2:
Earlier I mentioned that there are a lot of people who benefit financially or otherwise from perpetuating this cycle of constantly changing diet and exercise crazes. Some of those involved could be cynical manipulators, fully aware of what they are doing. Others, however, could be genuine in their belief that each and every idea they embrace works as promised. Just because someone helps perpetuate a cycle doesn’t mean that they can’t be caught in that same cycle.
By this point, some readers might be wondering what I am suggesting with this piece. Should we all become extreme skeptics and scoff at every new health trend we see? No, that could be just as counterproductive. Living in an age where so much research changes what we thought we knew about health and medical science is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it helps us improve our society by disproving old assumptions. On the other hand, this also leads to a lot of confusion, and confusion can be taken advantage of. Some of the diet and exercise trends that people embrace can be beneficial, and the desire to live better is not a bad thing. So, if the weight of evidence from reputable sources suggests that something new is good for you, it might be a good idea to try it. Just be careful not to be sucked into a cycle of accepting baseless and outlandish claims. There are two useful maxims to remember. The first is this: If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The second in latin is nihil sub sole novum, in english it’s, “there is nothing new under the sun.” Which means that humanity has been around a long time and has tried just about everything, and if there were some miracle remedy that helped with everything, we probably would have found it by now.
For those who have read previous entries in this blog such as this one I often try to give advice and provide insight. Hopefully, my tone is that of someone who is concerned, not as pretentious or holier than thou. I don’t claim to be better or more wise than others, we all have our faults and our blind spots that can be hard to see from our perspective. My goal with much of my writing is to provide an outside perspective, with the goal of helping others. I hope for some readers some day, I succeed in that goal.